The Muhammadian House

Ibn ʿArabī’s concept of ahl al-bayt

by Claude Addas
Reprinted from the Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi Society, Vol. 50, 2011.

'Ahlu baytī amān li ummatī’, 'The people of my house are a safeguard for my
community’. Although it is not included in any of the canonical collections,[1] this
saying attributed to the Prophet is one of the innumerable traditions[2] which in
Islam are the basis of the respect which the faithful have towards the ahl al-bayt,
[3] the 'Family of the Prophet’, understood here in the broader sense and
including the shurafāʾ, the direct descendants of the Prophet from his daughter
Fātima. The expression ahl al-bayt appears on three occasions in the Qurʾān,
[4] and one of these concerns the family – this is verse 33 of the Sura Al-Ahzāb,
which states, 'God wants only to remove uncleanness from you, O People of the
House, and to purify you completely’.
It goes without saying that the question of knowing exactly to whom the
expression ahl al-bayt refers in this verse has given rise to endless debate.
Staying with Sunni commentators, let us recall that for some, especially the
illustrious Tabarī (d.313/923), ahl al-bayt must be understood here as referring
not only to the Prophet himself, but also to his daughter Fātima, his cousin and
son-in-law ʿAlī, and to his two grandsons Hasan and Husayn; [5] in other words,
to those who are also referred to as the ahl al-kisāʾ, the 'People of the Cloak’, with
reference to the episode of the ordeal (mubāhala) to which Q. 3:61 refers.[6]
Other exegetes, however, such as Ibn Kathīr (d.774/1373) take the view that the
context (siyāq al-kalām) in which this verse occurs, obliges us to also include the
Prophet’s wives. It is in fact they who are directly referred to in the previous
verses and the following one.[7]
This is also the interpretation given by Hakīm Tirmidhī (d.ca.300/910) in a
passage of the Nawādir al-usūl. He quotes the verse in question, at the end of a
chapter on the very subject of what meaning to give to the hadith, 'ahlu baytī
amān li ummatī’.[8] Curiously, in another text, Tirmidhī considers another hadith
relating to the pre-excellence of the ahl al-bayt as suspect. He has no hesitation
in denying it any authenticity, even though it appears in the canonical
collections.[9]
Indeed the whole bearing of this hadith, or we might say this prediction, is
determined by the meaning we give to the expression 'ahlu baytī’, the 'People of
my house’. For Tirmidhī ahlu baytī certainly refers to the lineage of the Prophet,
but more specifically to his spiritual line, that of the awliyāʾ, the saints who
attain to the highest degree of spiritual realisation, whether or not they are
descended from the blood-line of the Prophet. It is these 'Men of God’, in the

1
strongest meaning of the term, who are the guardians of the umma, the
community of the Prophet, and moreover it is due to them that human kind
survives.[10]
We can easily understand how the thesis presented here by Tirmidhī, going as it
does against the commonly held opinion that ahlu baytī refers to the family of the
Prophet stricto sensu, has given rise to concern, even among his admirers. This is
notably the case with Nabhānī (d.1350/1931), who was challenged on the day
following publication of the Nawādir al-usūl,[11] by a sharīf from Mecca who
asked him to repudiate Tirmidhī’s statements on the subject immediately and in
writing.[12] At first Nabhānī equivocated. He had never written before and felt
unworthy of such a task. Moreover, he faced a serious dilemma. Tirmidhī was
certainly wrong on this point, he had no doubt of that. But he was also absolutely
convinced that Tirmidhī was a saint – and one of the greatest. Furthermore, it
was also the opinion of a master for whom Nabhānī had the highest degree of
reverence and to whom he unhesitatingly gave the title of al-shaykh al-akbar, 'the
greatest master’ – Ibn ʿArabī.
After considerable thought, Nabhānī finally agreed to write the article in question
– the first of a long series of works, many of which are dedicated to the Prophet
and to the veneration which is due to him and in which he demonstrated
Tirmidhī’s error, without, as he emphasises, any disrespect towards him.
But what Nabhānī did not know or pretended not to know[13] was that on the
question of the concept of ahl al-bayt, and, incidentally, on so many others, Ibn
ʿArabī broadly shared Tirmidhī’s views, except that his concept of the
'Muhammadian Family’ contains doctrinal nuances which are not found in
Tirmidhī, either in the Nawādiror in the Kitāb Khatm al-awliyāʾ, in which this
question is also addressed.[14]
Before turning to the subject itself, some lexical information is required. Ibn
ʿArabī, as we know, attached the greatest importance to hermeneutics in the
examination of religious vocabulary of both the Qurʾān and the hadith. [15] In this
case, he insists that care must be taken to distinguish the terms ahl and āl,
which are more or less synonymous in current usage. One may recall that the
word āl is the one used in the tasliya, the 'Prayer upon the Prophet’, at least in its
earliest form, and that it is generally agreed to give it the sense of 'family’ in this
instance, exactly like ahl. According to Ibn ʿArabī, however, this is wrong. He
states: 'Do not imagine that [the expression] āl Muhammad refers to “the people of
his house”; this is not the way among the Arabs.’[16]And again he states, 'In the
Arabic language, āl al-rajul means those who are intimate and close to a person.’
In saying this, the author of the Futūhāt bases himself on the Qurʾānic use of the
term āl, and more precisely on Q. 40:46, 'Make the people of Pharaoh (āl Firʿawn)
enter into the worst of punishments’. It is quite obvious that āl here does not
refer to Pharaoh’s kin but to those of his close advisors who supported him in

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exercising power and were thus complicit in his errors. In the same way, he
points out in connection with the prophets that the term āl must be understood
as referring to those who were closest to them in faith, the 'Pious Gnostic
Believers’ (al-sālihūn al-ʿārifūn al-muʾminūn). So it is upon these 'men of God’ and
not exclusively the kin of the Prophet that the faithful believer calls down divine
grace when he recites the tasliya, the practice of which was instituted following
the revelation of verse 56 of the Sura Al-Ahzāb, 'God and His angels bless the
Prophet, O you who believe, bless the Prophet and call down Peace upon him’.
When asked by his Companions how they were to carry out this duty, the Prophet
answered, 'Say: Lord, bless Muhammad and “those close to Muhammad” (āl
Muhammad) as You blessed Abraham and “those close to Abraham” (āl
Ibrāhīm).’[17]
In this way, Ibn ʿArabī notes, the Prophet extended the scope of the Qur ʾānic
injunction, enjoining the faithful to ask for the divine graces upon 'those close’ to
him in the same way as they were granted to 'those close to Abraham’.[18] Now
among the latter, there are many to whom God granted nubuwwa, the status of
prophet. Insofar as it refers to a law-bearing function (nubuwwat al-tashrīʿ), this
status is unattainable since the death of the Envoy, who was, in the Qur ʾānic
expression, khātam al-nabiyyīn (Q. 33:40), the 'seal of the prophets’. From this
point of view, no one will henceforth be able to claim nubuwwa. This is expressed
in the famous hadith according to which no prophet and no envoy will be sent
forth after Muhammad.[19]
Nevertheless – and this constitutes an essential point in the hagiological doctrine
of Ibn ʿArabī – prophethood does not amount to simply the exercise of judicial
authority. It also implies an outstanding degree of spiritual perfection.
Considered from this specific aspect, the concept of nubuwwa refers to a
'spiritual station’ (maqām), which Ibn ʿArabī sometimes calls 'the station of
general prophethood’ (as opposed to 'legislative prophethood’) and sometimes the
'station of closeness’ (maqām al-qurba), and which remains accessible to the most
perfect among the saints.[20] This means, Ibn ʿArabī concludes, that in conveying
this formula of benediction to his people, the Prophet wished 'the people close to
him’ among the ʿārifūn, the gnostics, to be able to attain the supreme degree of
sainthood, even if they are unable to exercise the nubuwwat al-tashrīʿ.[21]
Needless to say, the interpretation offered here by Ibn ʿArabī for the expression  āl
Muhammad is at a considerable remove from that held by the ʿulamāʾ. Moreover,
it is not the only one we find from the shaykh al-akbar’s pen. Because the Arabic
language is a polysemic language par excellence, and because akbarian
hermeneutics draws on all semantic resources, another text from
the Futūhāt considers a quite different, but no less subtle, meaning.
Among the accepted meanings of the term āl listed in the Lisān al-ʿArab is that
of sarāb, 'mirage’.[22] This is the meaning Ibn ʿArabī chooses to employ in the

3
passage in question, which appears in the long section in Chapter 73, in which
he undertakes to respond to Tirmidhī’s famous questionnaire.[23] Our concern is
with the one hundred and fifty-first question, 'What does the expression āl
Muhammad mean?’, to which Ibn ʿArabī replies:
The āl is that which magnifies images. In fact, āl is described as the largeness
of the images seen in a mirage. The āl Muhammad are thus those who are made
large by Muhammad (al-ʿuzamāʾ biMuhammad) and Muhammad, grace and peace
be upon him, is like the mirage which makes the one who appears there immense.
Thus, you think that you are looking at Muhammad, as one of great stature, in the
same way as you believe that the mirage is water – in fact it does appear to the
eye to be water. … But when you arrive at Muhammad, it is not Muhammad that
you find, it is God that you find in a Muhammadian form and due to a
Muhammadian vision.[24]

Two major ideas in the initiatory teachings of Ibn ʿArabī are to be found here,
expressed in the form of allusions, in these few lines of great doctrinal density.
Insofar as it is the expression of man’s extreme powerlessness, all neediness felt
by man reveals his need for 'the One who is sufficient unto Himself’. It is like a
cry for help – albeit mute – addressed to the Eternal. And because the
theophanies necessarily assume the forms of the receptacle in which they are
contained, when God responds to this call, He does so by revealing Himself in the
form of what is expected of Him. Just as Moses, when he had gone in search of
fire, saw God in the form of the Burning Bush, so too the man who is dying of
thirst searches for Him in the place in which he longs with all his being to find
water.[25] So too, the one who has gone in search of the Prophet is certain to
meet his Lord at the end of his quest. Moreover – and this second point is the
essential theme of the passage – he will have the most perfect knowledge there
could be:
The manifestation of God in the mirror of the Prophet is the most perfect, the most
accurate, and the most beautiful; when you perceive Him in the mirror of the
Prophet you perceive a perfection that you cannot perceive when contemplating Him
in your own mirror. … Therefore, do not try to contemplate God anywhere but in the
mirror of the Prophet, grace and peace be upon him.[26]

In fact, insofar as the Prophet – or, more exactly the 'Muhammadian Reality’ of
which he is the personification – is the perfect 'copy of God’ (nuskhat al-haqq),
and thus possesses all the divine attributes, 'The knowledge he has of God is the
same knowledge that God has of Himself’, as Jīlī expressed it.[27] Consequently,
it is by walking in the footsteps of the Prophet, or in other words by adhering
closely to him as the 'excellent model’ (uswa hasana, Q. 33:21), that the wayfarer
attains the highest knowledge of God:
Persist then in following and imitating him, and do not set foot in a place where you
do not see the footprint of your Prophet; set your foot in the imprint of his if you

4
want to be of those who have reached the highest degrees of sublime
contemplation…[28]

Whatever meaning he gives to the term āl, 'close ones’ or 'mirage’, clearly for Ibn
ʿArabī the expression āl Muhammad does not specifically refer to the family of the
Prophet stricto sensu. What is the position with the concept of ahl al-bayt?
We are given an essential indication on this in the Jawāb mustaqīm, a treatise in
which Ibn ʿArabī responds, point by point, to Tirmidhī’s questionnaire, as he does
in Chapter 73 of the Futūhāt, but using much more succinct wording. Thus, to
the question 'What is the meaning of his expression Ahlu baytī amān li ummatī?’,
[29]he limits his reply to quoting the saying attributed to the Prophet: 'Salmān is
one of us, the “People of the house”’ (Salmān minnā ahlu l-bayt).[30]
A pithy reply, certainly, but nonetheless enlightening. An eminent Companion,
Salmān had no bond of kinship to the Prophet, and moreover he was a foreigner,
a non-Arab (ʿajamī).[31] Thus, Ibn ʿArabī means that blood ties are not a priori an
indispensable condition for claiming the privilege of belonging to the Prophet’s
family. But what then are the criteria which in his view define belonging to
the ahl al-bayt? And in what way does he see the singular case of Salmān
constituting a reference point on the matter?
Doubtless the deliberately elliptical nature of the Jawāb is intended only to
sharpen the reader’s curiosity and inspire him to seek further elucidation in other
texts throughout the corpus of akbarian literature. Such explanation is to be
found in Chapter 29 of the Futūhāt, the title of which informs us that it has
bearing on 'knowledge of the secret of Salmān by virtue of which the Prophet
admitted him to the ahl al-bayt, and that of the spiritual poles from whom he
inherited it’.[32] Very significantly, this is the theme of the ʿubūdiyya mahda,
'pure servanthood’, which Ibn ʿArabī addresses as a first step. This expression
means for him the ultimate state of spiritual perfection, that of the awliyāʾ, who,
having disentangled themselves from all will of their own, from all creatures and
things, to the point of fully realising the sentence in the Futūhāt which
summarises the essential teaching of the shaykh al-akbar on the matter: 'God
wishes you to be with Him as you were when you were not a thing’.[33] No more,
no less. It goes without saying that only the most perfect among the awliyāʾ,
those who are admitted to the supreme 'station of closeness’ described earlier,
arrive at this hill-crest.[34]
Ibn ʿArabī says that in any event it is because the Prophet had realised the state
of pure servanthood most fully and completely and in all its aspects, that God in
return granted to him and his family to be absolutely 'purified’, conforming to
what is prescribed in verse 33 of the Sura Al-Ahzāb, mentioned above, 'God wants
only to remove uncleanness from you, oh People of the House, and to purify you
fully’. It follows, according to the author of the Futūhāt, that whoever is attached
to the 'People of the House’ is also purified, otherwise the Prophet’s family would

5
be tainted with uncleanness. As the Prophet had expressly admitted Salmān to
his family, Salmān necessarily enjoyed the prerogative granted to the ahl al-bayt.
[35] Ibn ʿArabī emphasises, however, that there is a difference between those who
are purified by virtue of their attachment to the Prophet’s family (the case of
Salmān is an excellent example of this but, as we shall see, by no means unique)
and the ahl al-bayt proper, i.e. those who belong to the blood-line of the Prophet.
This second group, he states, 'are the purified; or rather, they are the very
essence of purity!’ (hum ʿayn al-tahāra).[36] This is an important point because it
allows us a glimpse of the fact that Ibn ʿArabī’s view of the innate pre-excellence
of the ahl al-bayt is different from Tirmidhī’s.
Well and good. But exactly what meaning does the concept of tathīr (purification)
carry in Q. 33:33, according to Ibn ʿArabī? What is his view of its consequences
from the legal point of view? What attitude does this involve on the part of the
commonality of the faithful towards the ahl al-bayt? Ibn ʿArabī examines such
issues in detail and without evasion in the following part of the text, and insofar
as they touch closely on the principal issues of dissension between Sunnis and
Shiʿis, it is surprising that this chapter (29) in the  Futūhāt has not been made the
subject of an in-depth study by those who would see Ibn ʿArabī as a 'crypto-Shi ʿi’.
Be that as it may, Ibn ʿArabī’s position on the first point is
unambiguous. Tathīr is here synonymous with ʿisma(immunity from error),[37] a
term redolent with meaning for Sunni theologians, and even more so for their
Shiʿi colleagues, referring to the idea that the prophets – and the Imams in the
Shiʿi perspective – are exempt from sin.[38] It is therefore important to define
what this concept means for Ibn ʿArabī.
The first striking thing in the texts in which he addresses the subject[39] is that
he always refers to verse 2 of the Sura Al-Fath (Q. 48:2), which paradoxically
seems to invalidate the ʿisma dogma, since it announces to the Prophet that God
has pardoned all his sins, those past and those to come, 'li yaghfira laka Llāh mā
taqaddama min dhanbika wa mā taʾakhkhara’ ('That Allah may forgive thee thy
faults of the past and those to follow’). Commentators mostly avoid the problem
by arguing that the faults referred to are minor faults (saghāʾir), committed
inadvertently (sahwan).[40]
Ibn ʿArabī’s hermeneutic approach is quite different and draws, as always, on the
literal meaning in which all contradictions are resolved. What this verse states is,
he says, that divine forgiveness (ghafr) precedes the committing of a sin (sabaqat
al maghfira wuqūʿ al-dhanab).[41] Given that ghafr etymologically means 'veil’
(sitr), two possibilities are conceivable: either the veil is interposed between the
occurrence of sin and the person who benefits from the ghafr, in which case he
cannot in any way commit sin of any kind, or the veil is interposed between him
and the divine punishment which must normally ensue from the sins which he

6
has committed.[42] The first case quite obviously applies to the person of the
Prophet, who is consequently, strictly and literally maʿsūm, 'impeccable’.[43]
The second possibility applies to cases involving certain awliyāʾ[44] and certainly
the ahl al-bayt. Sin is indeed the worst of all forms of uncleanness there can be,
and according to Ibn ʿArabī, as verse 33 of the Sura Al-Ahzāb guarantees the
utter purity of the ahl al-bayt, it necessarily follows that the latter, like the
Prophet, benefit from this ghufrān, this divine absolution solemnly proclaimed in
the second verse of the Sura Al-Fath (Q. 48:2). This is precisely where their
essential state of purity comes from; and it is by virtue of the pardon which God
has inalienably granted them and which absolves them in advance of all sin that
they are mutahharūn, 'purified’.[45] In other words, the ʿisma in question, as
applying to the ahl al-bayt and unlike the Prophet, does not at all mean that they
are incapable of wrongdoing, but that in their case, these acts do not have the
status of dhanab, 'sin’, in the eyes of God and that consequently they are exempt
from divine punishment.[46] Ibn ʿArabī notes, moreover, that this forgiveness will
only manifest in the Hereafter and that in this world the ahl al-bayt are subject to
legal penalties when they infringe the law.[47]
Ibn ʿArabī emphasises, however, that it is incumbent upon every Muslim to firmly
believe that God has already pardoned the ahl al-bayt for all the wrongdoing that
they might be likely to commit, and hence to abstain from blaming them in any
way, even when one might oneself be the victim of their actions.[48] 'If you truly
loved God and His Envoy,’ he states, 'then you would love the “People of the
Envoy’s House”. You would find beautiful all that comes from them to you which
goes against your nature or desire, and rejoice that it is happening to you.’[49]
In short, on the question of knowing to whom the expression ahl al-bayt applies,
Ibn ʿArabī’s response is once again unequivocal. It applies, on the one hand, to
the shurafāʾ, i.e. the descendants of Fātima, and, on the other, to those like
Salmān, who are linked to the ahl al-bayt and who thus equally enjoy divine
absolution as promised in the second verse of the Sura Al-Fath.[50]
The fact remains that this scarcely clarifies the unusual status of Salmān and the
nature of the secret which earned him the honour of being attached to the
Prophet’s family. The information on the subject mainly appears at the beginning
and end of the chapter, but can only be properly understood if we correlate it
with other texts of the Futūhāt in which Ibn ʿArabī brings in the figure of Salmān.
The first lines of Chapter 29 bear, as I have said, on the concept of 'pure
servanthood’, in support of which Ibn ʿArabī begins by quoting two hadiths, one
after the other. The first speaks of the mawālī, emancipated slaves:[51] 'A family’s
freedman is part of the family’ (mawlā al-qawm minhum).[52] In fact, according to
the account recorded notably by Ibn Ishāq, Salmān was a slave in Medina at the
time of his conversion to Islam and was freed thanks to the Prophet, who

7
arranged the conditions of his manumission. Because of this, he has the status of
the Prophet’s mawlā, which de facto attaches him to the ahl al-bayt.
Yet the 'secret’ which is the basis of his privileged relationship with the Prophet
does not lie in this socio-legal status, which incidentally he shares with many
other mawālī[53] but, quite obviously, in his sainthood. The second hadith
mentioned by Ibn ʿArabī in the introductory paragraph is very revealing in this
respect: 'The men of the Qurʾān are the men of God and His elite’ (ahlu l-Qurʾān
hum ahlu Llāh wa khāssatuhu).[54] Now, if we refer back to the beginning of
Chapter 73 of the Futūhāt in which Ibn ʿArabī lists the various categories of saint,
we find that one of them exactly matches the terms of this hadith,[55] with Ibn
ʿArabī saying specifically that it is one of those 'whose character is the Qur ʾān’.
This is once again an allusion to the highest degree of spiritual perfection, which
is, first and foremost, that of the Prophet – 'his character was the Qur ʾān’, as his
wife ʿĀʾisha stated;[56] and secondly, of those spiritual persons who, having
reached the pinnacle of ittibāʿ al-nabī(following the prophet), are wedded to his
spiritual states. 'He whose character is the Qurʾān’, he states elsewhere on the
subject, 'he has raised up the Prophet from his tomb’.[57] It is also noteworthy, in
Chapter 29, that Ibn ʿArabī illustrates this hadith by reporting his own
experience of 'absolute servanthood’, which forms a sort of seal on the highest
degree of sainthood.
But it is only after expanding on the concept of ahl al-bayt that Ibn ʿArabī really
addresses the case of Salmān and states that he had received his spiritual
inheritance from the Poles who attained the supreme station of 'absolute
servanthood’.[58] The mention of Khidr as being one of these Poles is also an
indication to take into account.[59] It means that Ibn ʿArabī has most particularly
in mind those of the awliyāʾ he considers to be the authentic spiritual heirs of
the Prophet, the Malāmiyya.[60] Two other texts from the Futūhāt clarify this
point. On the one hand, there is a passage at the end of Chapter 309, which is
entirely devoted to the Malāmiyya, in which Ibn ʿArabī states,
'The Malāmiyya constitute the supreme category [of saints] and are the lords of
this exemplary Way. … Salmān al-Fārisi was one of the most eminent among
them and one of the Prophet’s Companions in this station, which is the divine
station in this world’.[61] In addition, in Chapter 14, in a long passage on the
'station of general prophethood’, and we have seen that this is the ultimate
station which the saints can attain, Ibn ʿArabī notes that the spiritual people who
attain this station are those who preserve the 'spiritual states’ (ahwāl) of the
Prophet and his knowledge, and he mentions Salmān among those who reached
that spiritual abode in the Prophet’s lifetime.[62]
Thus we have three indications of the spiritual status of Salmān, at once precise
and mutually complementary, since each one of them expresses the idea that this
illustrious Companion of the Prophet was in his time a saint out of the ordinary
in the truest sense. He indeed belongs to the category of the Malāmiyya, who are,

8
in the eyes of the shaykh al-akbar, the most perfect of the awliyāʾ in that they
completely adhere to the maximum extent possible, to the model of sainthood
arising from the specific heritage of the Prophet. In addition, he had arrived at the
'station of closeness’ and that is given only to a very few Malāmiyya, those who
have fully realised 'pure servanthood’ and whom Ibn ʿArabī has designated
the Afrād, the 'Singular Ones’.[63]
It is clear from all this that for Ibn ʿArabī the concept of  ahl al-bayt has two
distinct meanings. On the one hand, it means the Prophet’s family in the usual
meaning of the term, i.e. the ahl al-kisāʾ, which goes without saying, and
the shurafāʾ, the descendants of Fātima. The blood-ties which unite them to the
Prophet guarantee them a sort of ʿisma since they will be resurrected maghfūran
lahum, 'forgiven’, and thus exempt from all divine punishment. He includes in
this, moreover, an unwavering devotion from the faithful without distinction of
person, a point on which Ibn ʿArabī insists. The Prophet’s family is one whole,
and the love given and due to them may not be partial.[64]
But added to these descendants 'according to the flesh’ are descendants
'according to the spirit’ (with the understanding that the same person may in
some cases combine both lineages). Indeed, following Tirmidhī, Ibn ʿArabī
considers that his spiritual heirs, the Malāmiyya, whom he designates by the
generic term 'Muhammadians’ and who thus have the specific characteristic of
having realised 'pure servanthood’ fully and in all its aspects, which was the
characteristic of the spiritual attitude of the Prophet and his relation to God, do
also belong to the 'Prophet’s House’.
It is moreover this meaning of 'spiritual posterity’ that Ibn ʿArabī considers in the
long passage in Chapter 73 of the Futūhāt in which he replies, this time in a
discursive manner, to Tirmidhī’s famous question on the meaning of the hadith
'Ahlu baytī amān li ummatī’.[65] Having yet again emphasised that 'servanthood’
is the essential attribute of the Prophet (sifatuhu), he declares: 'The People of his
House are those who possess the same attribute as him [i.e. pure
servanthood].’[66]
And these are the exceptional beings whose renunciation perpetuates the
'excellent model’ (Q. 33:21) embodied by the Prophet during his lifetime, who are
the guardians of his umma, his community. They especially protect it against the
greatest peril, which is that of eternal damnation. Indeed, what particularly
interests Ibn ʿArabī here is the soteriological role that the tribe of Muhammadian
saints will play in the Hereafter, when the hour of the Last Judgement has
sounded.
I have already had occasion in an earlier study to address at length Ibn ʿArabī’s
doctrine of universal salvation and its scriptural foundations.[67] There are many
texts in which he examines the question, and although they all converge towards
a certain form of beatitude, more or less long term, for all men without exception,

9
the essential idea being that the mercy of God will absolutely outweigh His just
anger, yet the argument on which they rest is nothing less than repetitive. Each
of them in fact views the final triumph of the divine rahmaaccording to a different
perspective, which always unfolds towards the light of this or that verse, or, in
this case, this or that hadith, and in the meditation on which Ibn ʿArabī draws
the certainty that 'God will mercify everything’.[68]
Thus, he here interprets the hadith Ahlu baytī amān li ummatī as a joyful
prediction. 'Consider then,’ he exclaims, 'the Divine mercy accorded to
the umma of Muhammad which these words contain!’[69] He then points out
that, just as God preserved the honour of the 'Prophet’s House’ in this lower
world by imposing very strict rules of conduct on his wives, so he will watch over
the safeguard of that honour in the hereafter by not allowing a single member of
his umma to eternally suffer divine punishment, 'due to the blessing of the ahl al-
bayt’. Now, Ibn ʿArabī says this many times over and repeats it in this passage,
The Community of the Prophet is, from one point of view, the whole of humanity,
inasmuch as the Prophet was sent to all mankind in conformity with what
Revelation proclaims (Q. 34:28), at first carrying out his mandate in an invisible
manner by the intermediary of the prophets who went before him and who were
his 'substitutes’ (nuwwāb), and then in a manifest manner from the moment that
he was raised among men. Thus the umma of Muhammad stretches from Adam
to the last man there will be. From this point of view, all belong to Muhammad and
all will receive the blessing of the ahl al-bayt and all will be blessed.[70]

'He who loves God in all sincerity,’ says Ibn ʿArabī in the long chapter of
the Futūhāt devoted to love, 'is maqtūl, killed, annihilated.’[71] It is thus for the
Muhammadian saints, those 'pure servants’ who out of love for God have rid
themselves of their ego and all things to the point of becoming 'without name and
without quality’.[72]A sacrificial death, given as a whole-offering to the 'Lord of
the worlds’, in exchange for which these 'simple annihilated souls’[73] ask for
nothing, but by virtue of which God undertakes to pay them the blood price (al-
diya), the promise that in recompense for their exemplary sainthood, no one shall
eternally incur divine anger.
by Claude Addas, translated by James Lees
Reprinted from the Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi Society, Vol. 50, 2011.
Notes
[1].  This does not prevent many Sunni authors from mentioning it without
questioning its authenticity, especially so with Hakīm Tirmidhī in the Nawādir al-
usūl (Beirut, 1992), II, p. 101, asl 222; Muhibb al-Dīn Tabarī, Dharāʾir al-ʿuqba,
ed. F. Bauden (Cairo, 2004), no. 57; Ibn Hajar al-Haytamī, Al-Sawāʿiq al-
muhriqa (Istanbul, 2003), p. 261, no. 12.
[2].  See Tabarī, Dharāʾir al-ʿuqba, Ch. 5; Ibn Hajar, Sawāʿiq, pp. 260ff.

10
[3].  Cf. EI2, 'Ahl al-bayt’; M. Amir-Moezzi, 'Considérations sur l’expression “dīn
ʿAlī”, Aux origines de la foi Shiite’, in Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen
Gesellschaft, 150/1 (Mainz, 2000), pp. 29–68; M. Sharon, 'Ahl al-Bayt – People of
the House’, in JSAI, 8 (1986), pp. 169–84.
[4].  Q. 11:73, 28:12, 33:33.
[5].  Tabarī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān (Beirut, n.d.), XXII, pp. 5–7.
[6].  For more on this, cf. EI2, 'mubāhala’; Massignon, Opera minora (Paris, 1969)
I, pp. 550–72.
[7].  Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿazīm (Beirut, 1999), IV, pp. 220–21.
[8].  Nawādir, II, pp. 103–108.
[9].  Concerning the famous hadith 'Innī tārikun fīkum al-thaqalayn, kitābu Llāh
wa ʿitratī’; cf. Wensinck, Concordance de la tradition musulmane (Leiden, 1955), I,
p. 271. In an appendix to the Manāzil al-qurba (ed. Khalid Zahrī, Rabat, 2002,
pp. 93–8), Tirmidhī states that this hadith is from the 'People of Kūfa’ who,
according to him, are hardly trustworthy in the matter of transmission due to
their Shiʿi sympathies; even were it authentic, he explains that this hadith simply
means that the faithful should respect the rights of the 'People of the house’, in
the usual sense of the term – not that they possess any authority. In
the Nawādir (I, pp. 163–4, asl 50), Tirmidhī also comments on this hadith
without discussing its authenticity, but he nevertheless stresses that one should
not conclude that the ahl al-bayt enjoy ʿisma, impeccability being the exclusive
prerogative of the prophets.
[10].  More precisely this refers to the awliyāʾ whom Tirmidhī designates as
the Abdāl or the Siddīqūn; cf. Nawādir, II, p. 103; Kitāb Khatm al-awliyāʾ, ed. O.
Yahya (Beirut, 1965), pp. 344 and 345–6; ed. B. Radtke (Beirut, 1992), K. Sīrat al-
awliyāʾ, pp. 44–5; see also Radtke and O’Kane, The Concept of Sainthood in Early
Mysticism (Richmond, 1996), pp. 109, 111.
[11].  The Nawādir was published for the first time in ah1293 in Istanbul.
[12].  Nabhānī writes about this in detail in an addendum to his Jāmiʿ karāmāt al-
awliyāʾ entitled Asbāb al-taʾlīf(Beirut, n.d.), pp. 332–3.
[13].  Nabhānī often quotes the Futūhāt, but there is nothing to confirm that he
always understood it; see M. Chodkiewicz on this subject, 'La somme des
miracles des saints de Nabhānī’, in Miracles et karāma, ed. D. Aigle (Brepols,
2000), pp. 607–22.
[14].  Kitāb Khatm al-awliyāʾ, pp. 344 and 345–6; Radtke and O’Kane, Concept
of Sainthood, pp. 109, 111.
[15].  Cf. M. Chodkiewicz, Un océan sans rivage (Paris, 1992), pp. 45–6, 51.

11
[16].  Futūhāt, Bulāq edn, ah 1329 (henceforth Fut.) I.545–6.
[17].  Formulaic prayer known by the name of tasliya Ibrāhīmiyya which appears
in most of the canonical collections; cf. Wensinck, III, p. 282.
[18].  Ibn ʿArabī emphasises that one should understand that the Prophet made
this recommendation following a divine revelation, in the certitude that this
request by the faithful would be granted.
[19].  Wensinck, II, p. 260.
[20].  Cf. on this theme, M. Chodkiewicz, Le sceau des saints (Paris, 1986), pp. 77,
175–6; trans. by L. Sherrard into English as The Seal of the Saints (Cambridge,
1993), pp. 50–51, 114, 137.
[21].  Ibn ʿArabī states that ijtihād, interpretation of the law, is part of nubuwwat
al-tashrīʿ entrusted to the ʿārifūn; if, however, these latter belong to the family of
the Prophet, they combine the status of the āl Muhammad with that of the ahl
al-bayt, as was the case for Hasan and Husayn.
[22].  Cf. alwaraq.net, Lisān al-ʿArab, 'āl’.
[23].  This questionnaire appears in the Khatm al-awliyāʾ, ed. O. Yahya, pp. 142–
325; ed. B. Radtke, pp. 20–29; Radtke and O’Kane, Concept of Sainthood, pp. 71–
86. It should be noted that the numbering and sometimes formulation of the
questions vary between the different editions.
[24].  Fut. II.127–8; O.Y. edn, XIII.153ff.
[25].  On this subject, see the interpretation given by Ibn ʿArabī of verse 39 of the
sura Al-Nūr, in Fut. I.193; II.269, 338; and the highly clarifying remarks by M.
Chodkiewicz, 'Maître Eckhart and Ibn ʿArabī’ in Mémoire dominicaine, no. 15, p. 
26; and in Un océan sans rivage, p. 61, and n.18 on p. 177.
[26].  Fut. III.251–2.
[27].  Jīlī, Al-Kamālāt al-ilāhiyya fi l-sifāt al-Muhammadiyya (Beirut, 2004), p. 104.
[28].  Fut. III.252.
[29].  Jawāb in K. Khatm al-awliyāʾ, O.Y. edn (Beirut, 1965), p. 320; this is the
one hundred and fiftieth question which precedes the one relating to the
expression āl Muhammad.
[30].  This hadith, which does not appear in any of the canonical collections, is
quoted notably by Ibn Ishāq in Sīra (Beirut, 2001), p. 392; on the different listings
of this hadith, cf. Massignon, Opera Minora, I, 'Salmān Pak’, pp. 453–4.
[31].  On the unusual destiny of Salmān, cf. Sīra pp. 86ff; Massignon, op.cit., I,
pp. 443–83; EI2, 'Salmān’.
[32].  Fut. I.195–9; O.Y. edn, III.227–42.

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[33].  Fut. II.13; O.Y. edn, XII.321.
[34].  On the notion of 'pure servanthood’, cf. Chodkiewicz, Un océan sans rivage,
pp. 152–61.
[35].  Fut. O.Y. edn, III.229–30.
[36].  Ibid, III.230.
[37].  Ibid.
[38].  On ʿisma, cf. EI2 'ʿisma’.
[39].  Fut. I.622; II.359; IV.145, 490, where Ibn ʿArabī states that Q. 48:2 is a
divine indication of the Prophet’sʿisma.
[40].  For the many interpretations of this verse, cf. Tabarī, Jāmiʿ al-
bayān, juzʾ XXVI, p. 42; Rāzī, Al-Tafsīr al-kabīr (Tehran, n.d.), pp. 78–9;
Qurtubī, Al-Jāmiʿ li ahkām al-qurʾān (Cairo, 1939), vol. XVI, p. 263; see also C.
Addas, Une victoire éclatante (n.p., 2005), pp. 53ff. 
[41].  Fut. I.622; II.359.
[42].  Fut. I.622.
[43].  Jawāb, question 157, p. 325.
[44].  Ibn ʿArabī describes on several occasions in the Futūhāt (I.622, 661; II.491,
512–3, 553; IV.145) the particular case of those awliyāʾ who benefit from divine
absolution, like the ahl al-bayt. This is supported by two hadiths: the first
(Muslim, Fadāʾil al-sahaba, 161) concerns the combatants at Badr, of whom the
Prophet said: 'What do you know about it? It may be that God has seen the
People of Badr and said: do what you want, for I have [already] pardoned you.’
The second (Muslim, Tawba, 29), to which he refers frequently, describes the
specific case of a servant who, each time he commits a sin, immediately asks for
God’s forgiveness, and at the third offence God states: 'My servant has sinned
and yet he knew that he has a Lord who forgives sins and sanctions him. Do
what you will, I have [already] forgiven you!’ This affirmation means, according to
Ibn ʿArabī, that as far as this believer is concerned (and on condition that he
hears the divine statement addressed to him; see Fut. II.215), every form
of tahjīr (prohibition) is suspended, and all that remains in his case is the legal
position of mubāh, that which is allowable. Ibn ʿArabī (Fut. I.233) compares this
suspension of tahjīr with what happened to Abraham when he was cast into the
fire (Q. 21:69) without suffering injury: the principle governing fire, which
normally implies the generation of flames, was on this occasion suspended. In the
same way, when these spiritual ones commit wrong, it may appear as such but
from the divine point of view – and only from that – it is devoid of the status of
sin, as a result of which it attracts no divine punishment; in other words,
these awliyāʾ, like the ahl al-bayt, remain subject to legal penalties in this world.

13
[45].  Fut. O.Y. edn, III.230–1.
[46].  Fut. I.622; II.513.
[47].  Fut. O.Y. edn, III.231; we should recall (cf. above, n.9) that Tirmidhī
believes that ʿisma is the exclusive entitlement of the prophets, but he really has
in mind the Shiʿi dogma of ʿisma which assigns 'impeccability’ to the imams in
the strict sense of the term, while Ibn ʿArabī envisages it in connection with
the ahl al-bayt as a form of absolution granted throughout eternity by God.
[48].  Ibid, III.234ff.
[49].  Ibid, III.238. These few lines summarise several long passages that Ibn
ʿArabī dedicates to the duty of veneration of the ahl al-bayt, which reveals the
importance which he attaches to it.
[50].  Ibid, III.230–1.
[51].  For the various accepted meanings of mawlā, cf. EI2, 'mawlā’.
[52].  Cf. Wensinck, VII, p. 333.
[53].  See the list of the mawālī of the Prophet given, for example, in
Tabarī, Mohammad, sceau des prophètes, trans. Zotenberg (Paris, 1980), p. 331.
[54].  Wensinck, V, p. 346.
[55].  Fut. II.20.
[56].  Cf. Muslim, Musāfirīn, 139, which gives a variant of this tradition attributed
to ʿĀʾisha; for Ibn ʿArabī’s interpretation of this, see in particular  Fut. III.36 and
IV.60.
[57].  Fut. IV.61.
[58].  Fut. O.Y. edn, III.233.
[59].  Ibid, III.239.
[60].  To understand all the implications of the often allusive remarks given in this
chapter (29) on the spiritual status of Salmān, one requires a solid background in
akbarian hagiology, especially Ibn ʿArabī’s doctrine concerning the  Malāmiyya; on
this subject see the detailed study by M. Chodkiewicz, 'Les Malāmiyya dans la
doctrine d’Ibn ʿArabī’, in Melāmis-Bayrāmis, études sur trois mouvements
mystiques musulmans (Istanbul, 1998), pp. 15–27.
[61].  Fut. III.36.
[62].  Ibid, I.151.
[63].  Ibn ʿArabī notes (Fut. O.Y. edn, III.233) that these spiritual persons who
have fully realised 'pure servanthood’ and thus are directly attached to God
Himself (cf. Q. 15:42: 'My servants (ʿibādī), you have no power over them’) are

14
superior to those who attach themselves to creatures, even though they belong to
the Prophet’s blood-line.
[64].  Ibid, IV.139.
[65].  Ibid, II.126–7.
[66].  Ibid, II.126; note that here Ibn ʿArabī again quotes the hadith ' ahlu l-
Qurʾān…’ and the one about Salmān (Salmān minnā…) so as to define the sense
which he gives to the expression ahl al-bayt.
[67].  Une victoire éclatante, pp. 25–79.
[68].  Fut. II.220.
[69].  Fut. II.126.
[70].  Fut. II.127.
[71].  Fut. II.350, 354.
[72].  Ibid, IV.13.
[73].  This expression is taken from the title of a beautiful work by Marguerite
Porete, Le miroir des âmes simples et anéanties (Paris, 1984).

15